Execution

If strategy is deciding what to do, execution is all about making it happen. It’s the follow through. The main requirements for successful execution are:

1. Clear goals for everyone in the organization, that are supportive of the overall strategy
2. Measuring progress toward those goals on a regular basis3. Clear accountability for that progress

Those are the basics. Beyond that, good execution requires having a “systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it,” argue Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan in the book “Execution” Most organizations, they say, don’t face reality very well. It’s the manager’s job to force his organization to face reality, and then to deal with it.

At Frederique Constant, we use Rhythm Systems to help our teams execute our plans and accelerate our growth. Rhythm is particularly useful to align our multiple levels of management in Switzerland, USA, Germany and Hong Kong.

Rhythm Dashboard

Frederique Constant grew sharply worldwide and we restructured our organization two years ago. All senior managers worldwide report to the Management Team in Geneva. Subsidiary Sales Directors, Operations Directors and CFOs report to their counterparts in our Geneva HQ. Weekly reviews via web and video conferencing systems have created a tight worldwide organization.

The weekly meeting is a critical success factor in achieving our plans at Frederique Constant. Taking the time to prepare for weekly meetings helps to ensure our discussions are focused on solutions to items rather than mere status updates. We ask all managers to prepare the weekly meeting with these steps:

Review your week and update your status.

Prepare an action plan for any priorities not on target to be completed.

Capture your victories from the week – what went well?

Visualize next week – What does success look like?

Looking into next week – what are 3 priorities?

Stuck – anything you are stuck on and could use some help from the team.